Travis County Commissioners Court

August 7, 2012 - Item 25
Agenda

25, consider and take appropriate action on the following: the Law Library's request to make permanent the consolidation of its Granger and courthouse operations; and b, receive briefing and take appropriate action on Law Library's 2012 operational report and fiscal year 2013 budget presentation.
We've got the records management department tomorrow afternoon.
But I thought it would be good for us to -- to on a Tuesday kind of hear the presentation, think through it and discuss it prior to the budget hearing.
All right, that's what this is about.

>> Thank you, judge and Commissioners.
I'm steven broberg, I have with me lisa rush the manager of the law library, I would like to introduce you to Austin mcelroy running the power point presentation this morning, he's responsible for a couple of short videos that we have embedded in our presentation.
I think kudos are in order.
I thought he should be here with us.
We're here to present with you the law libraries operational report and provide some context for our fy '13 budget.
As the judge stated, both he and planning and budget agreed independently that this would be better held on a Tuesday with a follow-up to the budget hearing.
The operational report itself is really the story of the library's adaptation to economic and social changes that have been felt in the community and in the courts over the last four years.
You will be glad to know that our presentation was 40 minutes but like planning and budget looking at a bad budget we slashed and we slashed, we got it down to 30 minutes and even further our presentation is now 20 minutes.

>> You are moving in the right direction

>> [laughter]

>> Thank you.

>> Everyone is familiar with the growth of the county's population, the pressure on services and the economic struggles that affect so many of our residents and the same changes affect non-attorney patrons in the law library.
Ment we're here to describe some of the challenges that the library is facing.
In meeting the needs, but also to let you know that we have a plan and we'll explain how our budget request is critical in meeting patron needs.
But if this presentation has a theme, it's this: when your customers change, everything changes.
Ms. Rush.

>> I'm lisa rush, I manage the law library.
The law library turns 30 years old next year.
And for the first 25 years we served primarily attorneys and judges.
And then in the late 1990s, early 2,000s we started getting a new patron, self represented litigants and now self represented litigants make up 70% of the people who come into the law library.
So self represented litigants are non-attorneys representing themselves in court.
Also called pro se or sometimes srl.
Why are they self-represented?
Because they have a legal need that they need to resolve.
They have a right to represent themselves but they can't afford an attorney.
The state bar reported that the median hourly rate for a family law attorney in Travis County is $203.
That's 28 times the minimum wage of 7 and a quarter.
We have a critically needed and very effective legal aid services in central Texas.
But legal aid can only assist with 20% of the people who qualify for its services.
The legal system is designed for attorneys.
It's very hard.
And if your literacy skills or your ability to speak english is limited, it's even harder.
And the court, they are challenged, too.
When the courts are faced with the litigant who is uninformed about the process, confusion and frustration run through the courthouse.
In Travis County -- and Travis County is not alone in this.
Nationwide the statistics are that 60 to 90% of the family law cases have once self-represented party.
Texas office of court administration reports that in Travis County 45% of family law cases have one self-represented party.

>> 10 years ago, we came to you with a similar story.
The courts and the library then collaborated on a plan to address the issues caused by self-represented litigants in family law cases.
We presented our recommendations to you, the Commissioners and you chose to fund the addition of reference attorneys to the library staff and this began the first self-help services program in the state of Texas.
The following video describes the effects of this program, that it's had on the courts in our community.
I'll continue on.
When it pops up, go ahead.
The county began the program in 2002, between 2002 and 2011 the reference attorneys have helped 30,000 people, 170% of those during docket.
That's -- 70% of those during docket.
That's 30,000 in one year.
There's a savings that we can't quantify, that is how many hearings did not need to be scheduled, how many incorrect filings were not filed.
We don't know.
But we do know that this the reference attorneys assisted over 24,000 self-represented litigants in uncontested dockets and if conservatively they only save the courts 10 minutes per litigant that represents a court times saving of over 3900 hours since 2002.
Go.
Before the records attorneys judges spent hours and hours reviewing incomplete and inaccurate forms, oftentimes at the bench judges had to spend their time revising documents, correcting mistakes, crossing out things that weren't supposed to be in the orders, adding things that were left out of order.
Now all of that time is saved by the word of the records attorneys.

>> People need assistance, they need to be able to walk in and get help and be directed to the right sources.
Travis County law library with its self-help center is a place for people to go.
They can walk in.
They can get questions answered and they can -- they can get the forms.

>> It is that -- we oftentimes gets requests here at the state level, at the office for administration, from other counties about how do we set up a self-help center or what do we do to help self-represented r litigants.
One of the things that we have done is to refer people to Travis County and their self-help center.

>> In 2011, 70 percent of our 73,000 patron interactions were with self-represented litigants.
It includes people who walk in, but also people who call and email questions.
The patrons need the library to be a connecting point to services in the community.
They need to be connected with legal aid, mediation, hotlines, volunteer legal services, and in turn those services refer their clients to the law library when appropriate.
The Travis County law library is a part of the access to the justice safety net.
Now I would like to introduce to you our staff.

>> What is your role in the law library?

>> Well, the first thing is to listen to them very carefully and make sure that I understand what their question is.
A lot of times I have to ask them other questions to clarify exactly what their situation is.
So that I help them in the best way that I can.
And then I give them packets of information that we have at the library, a lot of times they're asking for forms and we have them available to hand out.
Otherwise, I refer them to books in the library or to websites that I know would have answers that they're looking for.

>> I order and process all legal publications for all of the district courts, civil and criminal, justice of the peace, sheriffs, juvenile court, probate court and other county offices, as well as order and maintain the lexus id's.
Some of my duties as a supervisor at the information booth include keeping informed about locations and services provided by the county.
I also set up and maintain public computers that include a 15 patron troubleshoot printing or emailing issues.
Along with working with the lawyers to assure all of the forms accessible on the website www.texaslawhealth.org.

>> My job is to narrow it down what area of law are they really needing, what resources do we have available that I can provide them, whether it's a packet to send them or an attorney or perhaps if they can't afford an attorney, to simply one of the resources in the community where they can sit down with someone to help them.

>> As a librarian, I assistant patrons over the phone, telephone contact or in person.
The patrons that I assist may range from lay people to attorneys to judges.

>> As a bilingual fluent spanish speaker, I mainly help our spanish community.
I definitely help everybody, but I notice a lot of my time is reserved for spanish speaking individuals.

>> The biggest challenge working in the law library.

>> People who come in with very complicated situations and they are expecting us to be able to help them and a lot of times we really can't do a whole lot.
They need help from an attorney and they need extensive help and frequently they don't have any money.

>> The biggest challenge is determining what are they actually needing?

>> Sometimes the patrons have issue that's they need to discuss that I feel are a bit personal or private.
To have an area to move that patron to another area would be great.

>> The biggest challenge is definitely the workload and the limited resources we have.

>> What's the biggest change that you've seen in the law library?

>> When I started, most of the people who came to the library were lawyers.
Doing legal research.
Now, what we get mostly are pro se's who have mostly family law, but also landlord, tenant, probate, property, most of them come to the library with no legal background whatsoever and they don't understand how things get resolved in court.
So we do a lot of explaining about the court system and what their responsibilities are to move their case forward.

>> I have worked here for more than 20 years.
I have seen an era where we did not have computers.
Our collection has changed a lot because we now have computer access for the general public.
As well as attorneys.
So I not only need to know the books, how to search things in the computer.

>> The combining of the self-help center in the haw library definitely exceeded the number of patrons we were seeing at the law library.

>> The biggest change for me has been seeing the growth of the program and the impact it's had within our community.
The law library is nope now, people are turning to us for more than just divorces and name changes.
Once they figure out how much an attorney costs and they can't afford one, they seek help with research and samples and forms. Basically the sheer volume of individuals coming in through our door has increased daily.

>> These reference staff that we're very proud of have a combined experience level of 75 years.
The last time the number of line librarian f.t.e.'s was increased was 2006 and the number of patrons they have served has doubled since that time.
Not just staff were affected.
Patrons were affected by staffing levels in the form of long wait times for reference help and long days in getting reference attorney appointments.
The wait can be four to six weeks, if a self-represented litigant can't get an appointment within a reasonable time what we are finding he or she is likely to go ahead and file and attend court with their incomplete paperwork.
This of course wastes the court's time and is counterproductive to the program.
Also a gap of the level service provided in english and spanish.
Many patrons can only speak spanish or more comfortable processing the information that they receive in spanish.
Often there's no staff in the reference desk would can help spanish speaking patrons.

>>

>> [indiscernible] resources is the first step in solving it.
We try to be good stewards and use and try to stay within our resources, asking for more staff is the last step, we have tried four ways to mitigate this process outside of the budget process.
We have tried four ways to mitigate this problem outside of the budget process.
Our most successful mitigation step was to hire temp staff.
Reductions in expenditures allowed the library to hire a temp reference attorney and temp librarian for the summer.
Two, we take advantage of volunteers such as attorney reviewers of forms and also the university of Texas pro bono program.
Three, we consolidated two locations in December.
The consolidation of the courthouse self-help center and the granger libraries helped us to consolidate our staff more effectively.
It is certainly easier to keep one location staff rather than two and the reference staff is less stressed here than they were in the courthouse location.
Four, the law library publishes its information kits to the web and we're starting something new.
From frequently asked reference questions that have involved answers we are working with rmcr to create short informational videos.
The first two videos are online.
Patrons can scan a bar code at the reference desk or the information booth and then watch the videos on their phones.

>> So to sum up the presentation of the operational report, the library is changing in response to the demands for our services, we have mitigated to the best of our ability and it is time for us to ask for more staff, not just to solve the service gaps but to help us explore new opportunities and services.
Another short video that asks some of our stakeholders what we can do to improve our services.
How can we improve?

>> Well, I think there's a couple of things that the library ought to consider.
Conference rooms for attorneys would be good.
If they are large enough, you could possibly do depositions in them.
Where you had some form of online scheduling that would allow attorneys to -- to schedule meetings, schedule depositions and schedule conferences.

>> Simply by offering some of the forms online that can be filled out online.
We find that that's very convenient for people and saves them a trip to the courthouse, saves them trying to find parking at the courthouse and just convenient all the way around.

>> You know better engagement with the law school might be an option so it allows them to provide more help to some of these litigants who are in need of that help.

>> The library is the best in the state.
Something that everyone in Austin should take great pride in.
However, it is understaffed.
Half the cases in Travis County 1 now one person is not represented by council.
They are desperate, they will do anything and the stakes are high.
They will lose their children, they may lose child support.
They -- they may end up being evicted from their homes and end up in a situation where they are homeless.
Simply because they don't know their legal rights.
And how they can help themselves.
I think it's a better of self sufficiency that people have equal access to legal resources.
And particularly people with low literacy or people who are spanish speaking, we need the staff at the law library to continue to assist that population.

>> I would like to take this opportunity to let you all know that Austin here created the videos that you have seen today using an iphone and an ipad only.
Did them fast and did them well.
Now, we move on to the part where we actually ask for resources.
First a little background on the law library fund itself.
The law library fund is dedicated fund generated by a $35 filing fee for almost every type of civil case filed in Travis County.
The fund was considered healthy enough to pay for the courts and department's print and online legal research materials until last year, 2011.
Revenue decreases combined with jumps in pricing for legal materials have strained the fund and it's -- it no longer has much of a reserve, so for 2013 we have asked that the general fund cover all of the expenses for the court's legal materials, p.b.o.
Concurred but with the exception of online databases for the criminal courts and lisa has a little bit more detail on the exact nature of the requests.

>> Here's our plan to meet the needs of our patrons.
First, we are requesting 10 more hours of reference attorney time to be added to an existing point 5 fte.
10 hours doesn't seem like much but it can make a big difference.
We know because we tested it this summer.
In may, the time to get an appointment with the reference attorney was four to six weeks.
After a temp attorney worked for 10 hours a week, this summer, the time to wait is now eight business days.
The cost for the .25 f.t.e.
Is 19,110 including benefits.
Second, we did the same for the librarians position.
We hired a temp bilingual librarians to, we the reference desk this summer and it's made a tremendous difference.
We had someone available at the law library full time who could speak spanish at the reference desk.
We didn't have to tell patrons to come back when cindy is here.
The cost for the f.t.e.
Is 56,000.
Our third request is for a .5 f.t.e.
Reference desk supervisor.
Currently we have a part-time reference desk supervisor.
The addition of a half time position, to provide full-time supervision at the reference desk, the cost for hiring a part-time reference supervisor would be 37,000.
The cost for these three positions including benefits would be 112742.
The law library fund is not sufficient to cover this.

>> We think there are some reallocations that will help get us there.
The general fund pick up costs that the law library currently covers with its fee.
The first is the court's online database access for $15,000 and the second part is the salaries of two f.t.e.'s.
The savings to the law library fund with those reallocations would be nearly $77,000 and it would enable the law library fund to support the addition of the .25 reference attorney and the bilingual librarians.
It will not cover the cost of the half-time reference supervisor for that we would need general fund help.

>> So you are asking for -- for -- for 37 -- 37,597?

>> No, actually, judge the total I think is best represented as 112,742.
But -- but what I just mentioned was a -- was an internal reallocation that will help us get there, but it still requires the general fund to pick up that total amount.
So this is kind of inside baseball on that last part.

>> Okay.
Simplify that for me.

>>

>> [indiscernible] I will give additional information, tomorrow the budget hearings do begin at 1:30, the first thing that p.b.o.
Traditionally does is provide you a sheet to have notes on that includes all of the budget requests from the different departments.
So what we are doing right now is reconciling the requests that they are --

>> [one moment please for change in captioners]

>> That creates a gap in the other part of the law library fund, is really.

>> Okay.
So it's for these -- now, this is what you would say tomorrow if we gave you another opportunity?

>> Yes, sir, and a couple of other things.

>> We want to hear the other things tomorrow, right.
I don't know that we want to hear the same things here but I think she ought to accurately display what this is so if you can put your head together today and tomorrow.

>> I think we just did, judge and lisa worked it outline by line and so if it's not there right now, it will be there tomorrow.

>> Okay.

>> If there are other requests, then let's hear about those tomorrow.

>> Okay.
Well, judge, I do have -- there is an action item here that I have a short --

>> Okay.

>> And it's regarding space.
We talked about the consolidation of the courthouse self-help center in the granger law library and we would like to request that be made permanent, just the consolidation of those two.
There are many positive outcomes from the consolidation, such as more effective use of staff and more space for patrons but there is one negative that needs to be recounted, and that is, as a result of the consolidation, we have lost many of our attorney patrons, and when we have asked them why, they have stated to us, it's because the new space is more crowded.
There is less availability of public access terminals for them, and it's noisy.
Now, there is a solution to all of this, and that is that facilities management plans to recommend that this law library expand into the space that we are vacating from media services and the rmcr administrative offices directly across the hall from us now here in the granger building, and that will give us waiting areas for families who accompany self-represented litigants.
It will expand our public access terminals and provide mediation and conference rooms for attorneys.
So when fm brings this family forward -- brings this plan forward, know that the law library fully supports this plan.

>> I have a question in regard to the attorney utilization as well as the pro se litigants.
The pro se litigants, of course are civil litigants usually in family law cases.
The attorneys are utilizing the law library and, boy, this is the best kept secret in all of Travis County, because private attorneys who are spending money for access can come here and get a far better library.
Predominantly do we see criminal attorneys or civil attorneys utilizing it.

>> We have a mix, but mostly they are court appointed criminal attorneys who are in the library, but we do still see civil attorneys and they go for the lexus and the westlaw and we still keep the form books.
We have really cut our collection back, our print collection because we expanded online.

>> Well, you know, just the other day I was getting rid of my vernon's because I always go online to access them now.
But I have a question with regard to the optimal location of the -- of the resource, since we are looking to move most of our civil activity down to second street and then we will still have our criminal activity -- criminal courts activity, I should say, up here on 11th street, so our pro se litigants who are accessing the civil courts will be 7 blocks away from -- from the courtroom in which they will be appearing.

>> Commissioner, we have always known the optimal place for the law library has been the civil courthouse and it is now -- if there were space in the current hms courthouse, that's where we would prefer to be, and the consolidation that we -- that occurred last December was a result of other factors, just not having enough overall space and staffing issues.

>> I agree with this consolidation and the near term.
-- in the near term.
I am wondering and leslie is coming up to address this, I bet, what the discussion has been about allocating space in our future civil complex.

>> Leslie strictland facilities management, space for law library and pro se programs is included in the civil and family courthouse space program, so their consolidation here and short-term expansion in granger would be just until the 2017-2018 time frame, when the new civil and family courthouse is completed, and then they will move down there with the civil and family courts.

>> Just the education I was looking to get, thank you, leslie.

>> Will the facilities bring the consolidation plan forward?

>> We are working with the department to refine the program and the plan and it will be in the near future.

>> Four months?

>> No, no, no.
It should be within -- within the next month or so.
Depending on your schedule.

>> The first plan for facilities just this week.

>> When do you move -- you move going over there with the court, right, to 700 lavaca?

>> Our administrative offices have already moved and media services is scheduled to move starting tonight.

>> So the space is becoming available or vacant for temporary use as is, and the expectation is for the renovation to meet the law library and pro se short-term expansion needs in fy '13 and funds for that renovation have been included in the fm budget request, for fm15.

>> May be recommended for the first space on the -- for the space on the first floor?

>> To modify what is media spaces, like the studio space and the offices are laid out to work with the law library and pro se program, space for offices and --

>> There is a food place on the third floor?
That's what you considered?

>> The -- the -- the space that's being considered for you to decide on relocating the cafeteria is the treasurer's suite, which is suite 160.
It is on the other -- it's on the north side of the building along the alley, which is some advantages for servicing a food service.
The space that the law library is planning to expand into is suite 110 which is on the south end of the -- of the floor.

>> But the treasurer's suite will move when?

>> This weekend, also, sir.

>> The question is, when do we think that space recommendation may be brought to the court?
Or do you know?

>> We will -- we will -- we are already to bring it forward whenever you are ready to have it.

>> My point is, let's bring both of them.
Might as well consider at one time.

>> Certainly.

>> Because I have heard bits and pieces for the last six months.

>> Sure.

>> Thank you very much.
I eagerly looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow for anything new and different.

>> I promise to be very brief tomorrow.

>> You made that promise today.

>> [laughter] today was 20 minutes.

>> Thank you, judge.

>> And you may have done 20 minutes today without the court's involvement, is that what you are thinking?

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